It was inevitable: compiling a list as monstrous as this would consume time, cause a delay. But here we are. 2018 came with its own firsts and highs. A new major publishing house came on board: The Indigo Press, founded by the distinguished Zimbabwean editor and critic Ellah Allfrey. A new major magazine: Kabaka, dedicated to publishing queer-centered […]

The Abantu Book Festival kicks off today, 6 December, and will end on 9 December. Among the festival’s guests are winners and finalists of the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards: Zimbabwean-South African Panashe Chigumadzi, who won our Essays & Think Pieces Award for “History Through the Body or Rights of Desire, Rights of Conquest”; South African Sibongile […]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is coming to South Africa for the 2018 Abantu Book Festival. The announcement was made this morning on Twitter by the festival organizers. She joins a list of guests that includes Cassava Republic founder Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, This Mournable Body author Tsitsi Dangarembga, Fred Khumalo, Helon Habila, Happiness Is a Four-Letter Word author […]

The Brittle Paper Awards is our way of recognizing the finest, original pieces of literature by Africans available online for free. We began it in 2017 to mark our seventh anniversary. The $1,100 cash prize is spread across five categories which reflect our efforts to capture the range and variations of literary dialogue on the continent: the Brittle Paper Award […]

The shortlists for the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards were announced in October. Begun in 2017 to mark our seventh anniversary, the Awards aim to recognize the finest, original pieces of writing by Africans published online. The $1,100 prize is split across five categories: the Brittle Paper Award for Fiction ($200), the Brittle Paper Award for Poetry ($200), the Brittle Paper Award for Creative Nonfiction ($200), the Brittle Paper Award […]

Update: For failure to attribute an original source, the Caine Prize, in September 2019, removed Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor’s “All Our Lives” from its 2019 shortlist, while Short Story Day Africa released a statement on intertextuality. Because we believe it to have resulted from inexperience rather than intentional withholding, we did not withdraw it from our […]

SIBONGILE FISHER WAS hanging out with friends, eating burgers at Snack Boss, a restaurant in Tembisa, a township in the East Rand in Johannesburg, when she saw the link on Facebook: a post congratulating her. It was November of 2016 and she had won the Short Story Day Africa Prize. She had been absent from […]

The 2018 shortlists for the four Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans have just been announced. Among the shortlisted are Nnedi Okorafor, Sofia Somatar, last year’s Best Novel Award winner Tade Thompson, Caine Prize 2007 winner Henrietta Rose-Innes, sci-fi works compiler Wole Talabi, and Sibongile Fisher, whose chosen story, “A Door Ajar,” won the […]

Welcome to Brittle Paper, your go-to site for African writing and literary culture. We bring you all the latest news and juicy updates on publications, authors, events, prizes, and lifestyle. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram (@brittlepaper) and sign up for our "I love African Literature" newsletter.

Monthly Newsletter!

Subscribe for African literature news, and receive a free copy of our "Guide to African Novels."